Category: Credits

Even though you couldn’t have missed the hype, Avengers Infinity War is out to take over the world’s box offices. In just it’s first weekend opening it earned an estimated $630m (£457m) worldwide and it made over $1.5 billion globally in just 18 total days of release, becoming one of the top worldwide releases of all time. With its stunning $75M opening in China yesterday, it seems there’s no stopping this visual effects juggernaut!

As with any Marvel movie, it would be have been an awkward green screened film without help from VFX on virtually every shot. The list of of VFX studios around the world who worked on it is many, as are the credits of the artists who worked on it (at least the ones who got included!) Framestore, ILM, DNeg, and Cinesite were a great part of the vendors based in London, once again showcasing this town’s creative muscle.

This morning, I paid a visit to the HQ of Warner Bros UK to deliver a petition to Warner CEO Kevin Tsujihara challenging major motion picture companies who don’t give a film credit to VFX artists that work on their films. You can see a video of this here. Alongside me was a movie star who has left a transformative impression on the modern film industry. You can see him prancing around behind me in the pic (below).

Delivering the Credit Where Credit’s Due petition to Warner Bros London HQ earlier today.

At the time of writing, over 6100 people have signed this petition about this issue. The workers that are refused a credit often work 70, 80, even 90 hours a week, and if they’re doing it here in London, they often don’t even get paid overtime for doing so.

These workers are essential to the success of the modern motion picture industry – today, every major success is drenched in VFX. It’s an odd situation for them to be in.

They don’t get a credit, but almost everyone else does, mainly because every other part of the industry is unionised in one way or another. Hang around until the lights go up at the end next time you’re at the cinema and you will see that the rest of the crew get a credit. The reason that VFX Artists don’t is because this sector isn’t seen as unionised – they work for companies that will give their rights away to win the work.